Peace with Ukraine: The Case for Russia

The first page of the 17-page draft entitled “Treaty on Permanent Neutrality and Security Guarantees for Ukraine”

Russia has continually tabled peace proposals which have been repeatedly ignored or rejected.

1. Russia agreed to the Minsk accords of 2014 & 2015 (along with the Steinmeir Formula") which provided that Kiev withdraw from the Donbas (Russian-speaking area of eastern Ukraine) and that Kiev should revoke laws passed after the U.S. sponsored 2014 coup which prevented Russian-speakers from using the Russian language in municipal, cultural and education spheres. The Donbas would have more autonomy but would remain a part of Ukraine.

But this was never implemented.

Why?
Two guarantors of Minsk, Germany and France -no doubt under U.S. guidance- only signed in bad faith. They used the treaty to give Ukraine the time and opportunity to build up Ukraine's military in order to launch an attack. This was later admitted to by former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande.
It was Merkel who ran to Putin begging him to stop the Donbas separatists from annihilating the Ukrainian army they had encircled.
So the Minsk accord was not implemented by Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko who did not mind the deliberate policy of aerial bombings and artillery shelling of Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbas. Nor was Poroshenko concerned about the depraved conduct of neo-Nazi Banderite militias such as the Azov battalion, Aidar Battalion, Pravy Sektor's Ukrainian Volunteer Corps, and the OUN Battalion.

The Minsk accord was also not implemented by President Volodmyr Zelensky who ran on a peace ticket. When Zelensky physically went to the Donbas to ask the neo-Nazi and ultranationalist militias to withdraw they (pardon my Anglo-Saxon) effectively told him to "fuck off". This was all caught on camera. It was filmed.

Zelensky's initiative was also followed by public threats against his life by figures from the extreme right whose power Western propaganda downplays, but whose militias provided the muscle which enabled the democratically-elected President Viktor Yanukovych to be overthrownin 2014.
2. Both Russia and Ukraine reached an agreement for peace in March/April of 2022 after the Istanbul Peace talks. But before it could be implemented, Boris Johnson (no doubt acting as an emissaryof the U.S.-led NATO) flew to Kiev and persuaded Zelensky to abandon the draft peace agreement.
3. Russia's peace proposal has been on the table for years. Talk of a ceasefire has only become pronounced because Ukraine is losing the war very badly.
The conflict in Ukraine which has been deliberately created by America and the West presents an EXISTENTIAL threat to the existence of Russia. This is the unquestioned feeling of Russia's political leadership and the Russian people.
Russia intervened in 2022 only after years of patience. Securing peace will not only be down to Ukraine, but must be consented to by the U.S. and its European vassals who are using Ukraine as a proxy to achieve the geopolitical goal of getting Russia to surrender its sovereignty.
All Ukraine has to do is to declare in a peace treaty and a revised constitution that it will:
. Be neutral . Never join NATO . Forfeit the 4 core regions of the Russian speaking Donbas who conducted 2 sets of referenda in 2014 and 2022 to secede from Ukraine and join Russia, a state to which they belonged historically (Novorussiya) . Forfeit Crimea which was Russian until Khrushchev gave it to the Soviet Ukraine in 1953.
The above was essentially what Zelensky and his negotiating team agreed to after Istanbul in 2022.
Just imagine how many lives (mostly those of a generation of Ukrainian men) would have been saved if Ukraine had abided by the Minsk accords and the draft peace treaty after Istanbul.
The West is heartless about how many Ukrainian’s have perished and are only prolonging the conflict to save face.
They will fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Russia cannot accept anything less than the aforementioned terms which would be enshrined in a treaty akin to the Austrian State Treaty of 1955 and a new Ukrainian constitution.
Putin has not refused the idea of a ceasefire. All he has insisted upon is that a ceasefire should be predicated on a guarantee of talks leading to a new security architecture on the European continent - something that should have been accomplished after the end of the Cold War but which was not pursued by the hubristic U.S. which has sought to destroy Russia (and China) because it did not want a peer competitor to challenge it military and economic global hegemony after the fall of the U.S.S.R.
A ceasefire alone cannot be agreed upon by Russia which was fooled by the West over Minsk. Russia also watched the West sabotage the draft Istanbul peace treaty. Accepting a ceasefire would only give time to the West to rebuild Ukraine's military. It would only delay a resumption of a Western-backed attack on Russia.
If Putin accepted less, he would almost certainly be removed from power and a hardliner would replace him with the overwhelming support of the Russian political class and the Russian masses.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He has an interest in geopolitics.

Hispanidad: The relationship between El Jefe and El Caudillo

Fidel Castro Ruz (left) and Francisco Franco Bahamonde.

It was ironic that Francoist Spain enjoyed good relations with Castroist Cuba.

Francisco Franco was more concerned in promoting the concept of Hispanidad -forging close relations with Spanish-speaking and Spanish-descended nations to combat the Anglosphere- than following a strictly anti-communist foreign policy.

So when Castro's left-wing government was ostracized by the United States through diplomatic isolation and a trade embargo Franco, who headed a right-wing authoritarian regime since he led the Nationalists to victory in the Spanish Civil War, refused to join in the U.S.-led sanctions.

A song by Carlos Puebla titled Saludo a España celebrated Cuban gratitude to Spain.

It is worth noting that both Castro and Franco were kinsmen of sorts. Castro's father had migrated to Cuba from Galicia, the north western region of Spain where Franco was born. Castro visited his ancestral home of Galicia in 1992 when he attended the 2nd Ibero-American Summit in Madrid - his only official visit to Spain.

Both men never met.

Franco died in 1975 and Castro in 2016.

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

CrossTalk | "Trump’s Escalation" | Broadcast on RT on Wednesday, July 30th, 2025

My latest appearance on CrossTalk the flagship programme of RT. 

The topic was “Trump’s Escalation”. 

Preamble:

"Trump has the habit of suddenly changing his mind. His 50-day ultimatum directed at Russia to end the Ukraine conflict is now up in the air. Why the change is anyone’s guess. However, it is fair to assume Trump wants to divert attention from his transparency problems."

CrossTalking with Adeyinka Makinde, Daniel Lazare, and Drago Bosnic.

It was recorded on Tuesday, July 29th, 2023, and broadcast the following day.

CrossTalk: "Trump’s Escalation"

. RT

. Rumble

. Audio

© RT (2025).

A warning from history: Goethe and the folly of German militarism

"As for (German Chancellor) Mr. Merz, he has repeatedly said amusing things, including that his main goal is to once again make Germany the leading military power in Europe. He didn't even choke on the word 'again'."
-Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, July 11th, 2025.

On Wednesday, May 14^th, 2025, the German Chancellor Friedrch Merz made a statement in the Bundestag asserting that he was intent on transforming the Bundeswehr into “the strongest European army”. But while this policy announcement was welcomed by the United States administration led by Donald Trump which insists that its European partners within NATO take on more of the burden in military spending, as well as by most of the political leaders in the EU who remain steadfast in their resolve to weaken and destroy the Russian state, others, not least the government of the Russian Federation, have responded with concern. Fears that a militarisation of the German mindset would likely accompany the implementation of the Merz plan are not without foundation given the end results of two eras of German rearmament during the 20^thcentury. Both disasters were foretold by the German polymath Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

In his time Goethe had a relationship with the German people which transcended a reverence for his literary genius. As was the case with many other giants of German culture who operated in the spheres of philosophy, literature, poetry, art and music, he was greatly inclined to examine the German soul.

A defining point in his relationship with his people came at the time of the War of Liberation in the early 19^th century when Napoleon Bonaparte was reeling from the defeat of the Grande Armée in Russia. A coalition of armies which included the German states of Austria, Prussia, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hanover, Bavaria, Saxony and Wurttemberg took up arms to expel the French.

But Goethe, a child of the Enlightenment and an admirer of Napoleon who he believed embodied Enlightenment values, remained indifferent and cautioned his people about their embrace of nationalism and militarism. He felt that Germans could not be trusted to exercise restraint and rationality when energised by military ambition because of what he understood to be the psyche of a landlocked, 'claustrophobic' people. If they were stimulated to compete with other powers in the arena of international politics and war, they would, Goethe reasoned, seek to extend their frontiers and become embroiled in militaristic endeavours that would lead to overreach and eventual, predictable disaster.

Thus, Goethe called on Germans to invest in "culture and the spirit". What he meant by this was that they should focus on conquering the world with their talents across the spectrum of music, philosophy, commerce and the sciences.

But his people were uncomprehending. They interpreted his anti-nationalist stance and renunciation of war as a form of betrayal. Goethe himself felt aggrieved at their lack of understanding which also negatively impacted on the well-being of his family.  August, his only child to survive to adulthood suffered from the accusation of cowardice because his father took steps to discourage him from undertaking military service.

Goethe was seemingly proven wrong when four decades after his death the rise of Prussia provided the impetus for the near total unification of the German-speaking people, and the creation of the German Empire at the time of the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1871. But the subsequent destruction of Germany in two consecutive world wars during the 20th century provided strong validation of Goethe’s fears.

These fears persisted after the Second World War. The Morgenthau Plan, which was drawn up in the latter stages of the war but later abandoned, proposed to de-militarise and de-industrialise those parts of Germany that would come under Allied control. Although the West created the Bundeswehr and incorporated it into NATO, Lord Ismay’s often quoted raison d’être for the North Atlantic Alliance being “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in and the Germans down” reflected the belief among its European allies of the necessity of having German military power circumscribed.

Still later, the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher opposed German reunification because she believed that Germany would not continue to accept the Oder-Niesse line as the border between Germany and Poland.

The present aspiration to build a powerful army is set against the backdrop of a NATO-backed proxy war which pits Ukraine against Russia. In addition to the anti-Russian sanctions regime in which Germany has participated as an EU member state, the Germans have provided the Ukrainian military with weapons and equipment including Leopard tanks. In 2024, several senior officers of the Bundeswehr including the head of the Luftwaffe were recorded discussing potential attacks in Crimea including one directed at the Kerch Strait Bridge.

Belligerent remarks by the German Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius and Chancellor Merz have rattled the Russians. Pistorius claimed that German troops were ready to kill Russian soldiers “if deterrence doesn’t work and Russia attacks”, while Merz told the Bundestag in July that the “means of diplomacy are exhausted.” And further to the announcement of plans to increase the German military budget to €153 billion by 2029 was a call for a national debate on the introduction of universal conscription by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

This state of affairs has led to a decision by Russia in July 2025 to withdraw from the military-technical agreement it signed with Germany in 1996.

Today, there are few German philosophers who examine the German soul as did the likes of Goethe, Friedrich Holderlin, Heinrich Heine, Thomas Mann and others. Indeed, Thea Dorn (the pseudonym of Christiane Scherer), who co-wrote Die deutsche Seele (The German Soul) in 2011, bemoaned the present day lack of German thinkers soon after the publication of her book.

Yet, one need not rely on philosophical prognosis to understand the implications of Foreign Minister Lavrov’s comments in May 2025 about Germany’s direct involvement in the prosecution of the Russia-Ukraine conflict when he warned that “Germany is sliding down the same slippery slope it already followed a couple of times in the last century.”

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

About Major Salim Hatum: The Druze army officer who helped shape Syrian politics during the 1960s

Captain Salim Hatum of the Syrian Army.

Salim Hatum was a Druze military officer and member of the Ba'athist Party who played a prominent role in Syrian politics in the 1960s.

Born in the village of Dhibin in Sweida in 1934, he enrolled at Homs Military Academy in 1955 and was commissioned a Lieutenant in 1957.

He was a key participant in the coup which overthrew Lieutenant General Amin al-Hafiz on February 23rd, 1966. Hatoum, who was the Commander of the Thunderbolt Battalion, secured key radio and television buildings where he read out Statement No. 1: his announcement that the Ba'ath Party had overthrown the military regime and the proclamation of a state of emergency.

He was promoted to Major and became part of the ruling Military Committee.

Prior to the coup, he was the Commander of a commando unit and added to this the command of the army garrisons situated near to radio and television stations. However, Hatum felt that he was not properly rewarded for his role in the coup and sought to overthrow the regime nominally headed by President Nureddin al-Atassi whose deputy, General Salah Jadid was effectively the power behind the throne. 

But the insurrection which he began in the Druze heartland (Hatum detained both al-Atassi and Jadid in Suwayda and considered executing both) was put down by air and ground action organised by Air Force Major General Hafez Assad, the future long-term leader of Syria. 

Hatum fled to Jordan where King Hussein gave him refuge. Back home in March 1967 he was convicted of treason and sentenced to death in absentia.

Hatum returned to Syria in June 1967 just after the end of the Six Day Way. He had made a statement published in the Lebanese An-Nahar newspaper that he was returning to fight the Israelis and may have thought that the defeat by Israel had weakened the government to the extent that they would ignore the death sentence handed down against him. However, he was apprehended and the death sentence confirmed by the Supreme State Security Court.

Major Hatum was executed by firing squad in the early hours of June 24th, 1967 at the Mezzeh Military Prison.

N.B.

. Hatum had been friends with "Kamel Amin Thaabet", the character played by Mossad spy Eli Cohen. He sat as part of the panel of officers of the Special Military Court which tried and convicted Cohen of espionage.

. Hatum's disagreement with his colleagues after the overthrow of Lieutenant General Hafiz was set against the backdrop of sectarian tensions within the Ba'athist movement between Alawite officers on the one hand, and those like Hatum who were of Druze origin. In Jordan he told a press conference that Alawites outnumbered non-Alawites by five to one in the Syrian Army. This, he argued, perverted the Ba'athist motto of "One Arab nation with an eternal message" to that of "One Nusayri state with an eternal message", Nusayri being a derogatory word for Alawite.

. Both Jadid and Assad considered Hatum to be reckless when charged with arresting Hafiz during the coup in February because of the amount of property damage caused and mass casualties sustained.

. Hatum is also spelt as "Hatoum".

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.

Royal Nigerian Navy anti-smuggling operations on the high seas in the words of Captain James Rawe

Images: Lieutenant Commander James Rawe pictured in 1958; Map depicting the area between the mouth of the Cross River Estuary and the Island of Fernando Po; and Royal Nigerian Navy Masthead Pendant.

James Rawe, a veteran of the Normandy landings during the Second World War, was a Royal Navy officer who later played an important role in the development of the Nigerian Navy. Although a specialist in the field of hydrography, he went on the perform the duties of a combat and staff officer, the former of which led him to plan the amphibious landings during the Nigerian Civil War. He was also charged with organising traditional naval routines geared to maintaining organisational discipline, morale and cohesion. His earlier role as a sea captain had not been confined to that of a survey vessel named Penelope. He was given charge of HMNS Nigeria, an Algerine-class frigate which had served the Royal Navy as HMS Hare, a minesweeper, during the Second World War. This ship did not only participate in ceremonies associated with visiting dignitaries, but was also, under Rawe, charged with policing Nigeria’s territorial waters in the cause of disrupting smuggling activities emanating from neighbouring Cameroon and the then Spanish-controlled island of Fernando Po.

James Rawe: “HMNS Nigeria was ordered to take over from some smaller craft on the anti-smuggling patrol between the Cross River and Fernando Po, a Spanish Island in the Bight of Biafra. We picked up the smugglers on radar, started an ARL (Average Run Length) plot and when in range, fired a star shell to illuminate the area. These new methods came as a shock to the smugglers, and we captured huge quantities of contraband and took many prisoners. The Spanish navy seemed a bit upset by our activities, as they were taking place on the high seas, as opposed to Nigerian territorial waters and this was not strictly legal. The Spanish sent out a frigate, which ... illuminated us with her searchlight. I responded by sounding action stations and invited them to identify themselves. Possibly seeing our larger gun, they switched off their searchlight, replied "Spanish Warship" and headed back to Fernando Po.”

-Excerpt from That Reminds Me, the privately published memoir of Captain James Rawe.

James Rawe was born on July 14th, 1925. He died on April 15^th, 2023.

Captain James Rawe - Obituary

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England. He is the author of the article "The Bonny Landing: The anatomy of Black Africa’s first amphibious operation, July to September 1967", published in the August 2024 edition of The Mariner's Mirror, the international journal of the Society for Nautical Research.

“Die wilde Jagd” and the prophesized rise of Hitler

Die wilde Jagd by Franz, Ritter Von Stuck (1889).

The painting Die wilde Jagd (The Wild Chase), a work in the symbolism genre by Franz Stuck, depicts the German god Wotan (Odin) on horseback leading a spectral procession in a seemingly frenzied pursuit.

In Germanic and Norse mythology Wotan doubles as a god of war who received soldiers who died in the battlefield in Valhalla, and as a hunter who embodied the ability to control life, death and the elemental forces of nature.

It has often been remarked that the central figure in Stuck’s work bears an uncanny resemblance to Adolf Hitler who was born in 1889, the year the painting was completed.

And it is claimed that Hitler, who first saw the painting as a 13-year-old, modelled his adult appearance on Wotan’s depiction.

Von Stuck became his favourite painter.

A great believer in providence, Hitler often spoke of his coming to power, his survival from assassination attempts and his military victories as manifestations of his worldly destiny.

Some believe that Stuck’s painting prophesized the rise of Hitler. Mythology had a deep-seated hold on the German psyche, and this formed the basis of many examinations and prognostications by its philosophers, musicians and writers.

For instance, Heinrich Heine, the German poet and thinker, felt that the Christian religion only kept a tenuous lid on the darker aspects of the German soul. He feared that the veneer of relative German pacifism could be broken by the rise of a Germanic demagogue-thinker who would be able to use his primitive powers to summon up the demonic forces of German pantheism.

He was perhaps like Stuck’s painting prophesizing the rise of Adolf Hitler.

NB.

. Stuck was ennobled in 1906
. He died on August 30^th, 1928, at the age of 65
. He is buried in the Munich Waldfriedhof
. Die wilde Jagd resides at the Lenbachhaus Museum in Munich

© Adeyinka Makinde (2025).

Adeyinka Makinde is a writer based in London, England.