Judging Freedom - SPECIAL: Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Putin's Offer of Peace

Episode Date: June 17, 2024

SPECIAL: Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Putin's Offer of PeaceSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 17th, 2024. Professor Jeffrey Sachs is here on President Putin's remarkable proposal for peace. But first this. You all know that I am a paid spokesperson for Lear Capital, but I'm also a customer, a very satisfied customer. About a year ago, I bought gold and it's now increased in value 23%. So $100 invested in gold a year ago is now worth $123. If you have $100 in the bank, it still shows $100, but $100 in the bank is now worth 24% less. Inflation has reduced

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Learjudgenap.com. Tell them the judge sent you. Professor Sachs, good day to you, my dear friend, and thank you for accommodating our schedule. Of course. Great to be with you, as always. What is remarkable, in your view, about President Putin's offer of peace in Ukraine late last week? Two things. One is what President Putin said. He laid out a clear Russian position on how the fighting could stop immediately. The second thing that's remarkable is how obtuse the U.S. and European reaction was to President Putin. It was immediately tarred as an ultimatum, as a disgrace, as a non-negotiation, whereas President Putin absolutely put forward a negotiating position. But the idea is,

sit down and talk. Don't just shoot each other. And President Putin very clearly said, let's talk. Now, the basis that he proposed is also rather straightforward, though there are points that are negotiable. Some, I think, are probably not negotiable. The non-negotiable point that I think is not only correct from Russia's point of view, but correct from America's point of view, is that Ukraine should be a neutral country without U.S. military forces through NATO being right up against Russia's border. Russia doesn't want that, and the United States should not want that, should not want that. Do we really want to have more direct war with Russia? Of course we shouldn't. This has been the bone of contention for 30 years. The U.S. once upon a time promised in 1990 NATO would not move one inch eastward. Then the U.S. cheated, starting with Bill Clinton and then carrying on

since then with all of the American presidents. It's a cheat. Russia kept saying, stop the NATO enlargement. We don't want you on our doorstep any more than the United States would like Russia or China to have military bases on the Rio Grande in Mexico, or like the United States did not accept Russia or Soviet Union putting nuclear weapons into Cuba in 1962. Russia doesn't want it. So that's the first point. And I think it's non-negotiable from the Russian point of view, but I once told the White House, it's not even a concession. It's a good thing for the United States. Understand reality. So that's the first. The second thing that Russia said is Crimea is ours. And it is going to be. I think that is absolutely non-negotiable. Crimea has been

the base for Russia's naval fleet in the Black Sea since 1783. Our country wasn't even with the Constitution yet, and Russia already had its evil fleet in Sevastopol in 1783. Now, historically, starting with the British Empire, the idea was get Russia out of the Black Sea by overtaking Crimea or surrounding Russia in the Black Sea through British or now US slash NATO military power. Russia's not having it. What's notable, Judge, is that up until 2014, this wasn't an issue. Of course, Russia had said, don't expand NATO. But Crimea wasn't a particular point of challenge. It became a particular point of challenge when the U.S. helped to overthrow a government in Ukraine. And President Putin immediately said, we're not going to hand over, because you've overthrown a

government, our naval base to NATO. And that's when a referendum was held in Crimea, which is ethnically Russian. They voted overwhelmingly. We stay with Russia, and it's been part of what President Putin said was that Russia demands its sovereignty over four annexed regions, that it is annexed as of 2022. These are the Donbass regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, and also southern Ukrainian regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson. There's a history to this, a long history. The long history is that Russia was not demanding that territory until the United States pushed the NATO enlargement, refused the negotiations until the end of 2021. And then Russia said, OK, they want to be part of Russia. We take them as part of Russia. I think that the specifics on that are negotiable. Russia does not control all four of those

regions. It controls parts of them. That's where the contact line of the battlefield is. This is a point to negotiate. The West, I don't know, the West, what do I mean by the West? I mean, the United States government and the NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the president of the European Union, Ursula von der Leyen, gave a completely absurd and absolutely wrong and harmful response to this. Oh, those are just demands. Unacceptable. We fight on. Instead of saying, well, that's Russia's position. We have other positions, but we should now sit down to negotiate because clearly there is a way to reach peace. There is a way to reach peace at

the negotiating table. It's the U.S. that keeps rejecting the idea of negotiations. And I've never seen anything quite like the Biden administration as being the worst of this, because other presidents have understood that you negotiate. It's not a matter of left or right, weak or soft or strong. We had President Reagan absolutely negotiating with the Soviet Union. And he famously said that the way to negotiate is trust, but verify. In other words, I'm not going to be a sap in this, but I'm ready to negotiate. President Biden negotiated and on and on. Strong presidents negotiate, weak presidents don't, and this is our problem right now. Let me play the core of President Putin's offer for peace. It's only about 60 seconds long. Please pay careful attention to the last sentence or half sentence of what he says.

It's rather remarkable. The West is ignoring our interests and at the same time, forbidding Kiev to negotiate, all the while hypocritically calling us to some kind of negotiations. It just seems foolish. Ukrainian troops must be fully withdrawn from Donetsk and Luhansk peoples' republics and from the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions. And I draw your attention to the fact that it includes the entire territory of these regions

within their administrative borders, as they existed when they joined Ukraine. Once Kyiv declares its readiness and starts the genuine withdrawal of its troops from these areas, as well as officially notify about the abandonment of plans to join NATO, our side will immediately, literally at the same minute, follow the order to cease fire and start negotiations. Immediately and at the same minute, our side will withdraw and start negotiations. This is exactly what you said, negotiations. There are points in here worthy of negotiation. It's rather remarkable. I think you have more experience here, vastly more than I do, for a leader to say immediately,

but he did. Doesn't he mean what he says? Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning with courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates. You can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material, you know, make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at WGU.edu. He does mean what he says. And the U.S. and E.U. and NATO leaders all focused on that means the entirety of these four regions, that point, rather than on what you're pointing to, which is that we will stop fighting when these basics are met. We don't have to meet every basic that President Putin said. I can tell you, I know what the core of this is because it's been 30 years of discussion.

And I'll explain another bit of evidence of why it's the core. The core of this from the start has been NATO enlargement. Russia does not want the US on its doorstep. We don't want Russia on our doorstep. If our leaders had any honesty at all, they would tell this to the American people and say this to Russia. Just a little bit of honesty, just once to explain that we cheated on promises. We have driven up recklessly on a project to surround Russia with NATO, and it wasn't a good idea. That's it. Then the war stops. That's the essence of this. You know, Russia never had territorial demands on Ukraine up until the coup that overthrew Yanukovych in 2014. As I said, they didn't make territorial demands on the Donbass. They didn't make territorial demands on Crimea.

With Crimea, they were satisfied with a 25-year lease of their naval base. That was enough. Just leave us alone. Then came the coup. For seven years after the coup, Russia did not claim that Donetsk and Lugansk were part of Russia. Russia didn't seize them. Russia didn't annex them. Russia didn't claim these territories. Russia said was that they should be given protection and autonomy based on a treaty that Ukraine had signed and that France and Germany were guarantors and that the United States had backed in the UN Security Council called the Minsk II Agreement. This was another Western cheat because we know that there was no intention on the Western side or on the coup-led Ukrainian side to actually honor the very treaty that they had themselves signed. But there was no Russian

demand for territory. And President Putin explained in this press conference that the demands for Zaporizhia and Kherson region arose because the general staff of the military said that that was essential to protect the land bridge to Crimea. negotiable, or at least you sit and you negotiate it and you see, and maybe negotiations don't work in the end. Maybe they do, but we run from the negotiating table out of fear. It's pathetic. I've never seen anything like it. Let me play you two clips that will raise your blood pressure even more. I say this out of respect and affection, but this first is General Stoltenberg claiming that Putin's offer is not in good faith. And the second is Secretary Austin. You talk about irony, saying Putin is in no position to dictate to Ukraine. We'll play them back to back. It's not for Ukraine to withdraw forces from Ukrainian territory. It's for Russia to withdraw their forces from occupied Ukrainian land. And this proposal is a proposal that actually means that Russia should have the right to occupy even more

Ukrainian land. All the four provinces that they claim are not Ukrainian. So this just demonstrates that this is not a proposal made in good faith. He is not in any position to dictate to Ukraine what they must do to bring about a peace. I think, you know, that's exactly the kind of behavior that we don't want to see. We don't want to see a leader of one country wake up one day and decide that he wants to erase borders and annex the territory of his neighbor. That's not the world that any of us want to live in. And so I think, you know, he is not in the, in my view, not in a position to dictate to Ukraine what it must do to pursue peace. I'm not sure who's worse. Stoltenberg is the chief European diplomat and he doesn't want

to talk. Austin is the head of the Defense Department, who doesn't understand recent history, telling other countries how to live. Does he remember what Boris Johnson did to the agreement that Ukraine was about to sign, telling them how to live. I'll let you take it from there. These two are stomach churning to me. Well, I think it's actually also sadly humorous because they both start out with the same sentence. He's in no position to dictate to Ukraine. What this means is that these are talking points that are quickly worked up. These are words put in the mouths of these people. This could even be a deep face for all it's worth. I think it's real. I think they really said this, but these are just narrative points or talking points.

Stoltenberg is, of course, he's an agent of the same U.S. government that gave the talking points to Secretary of Defense Austin. The response should be, President Putin has said to negotiate on this basis. We believe that negotiations are important, but we don't accept the terms that Russia has proposed. We look forward to sitting down with our Russian counterparts to see if we can't reach actually an understanding and a settlement of these issues. The way that they do it is designed to completely foreclose that discussion. What you suggested is Diplomacy 101, and these guys reject that. of the war in February 2022, there has not been one day of negotiation between the United States and Russia at a senior level. There has not been one conversation that we know of between President Biden and President Putin. This is a disgrace because there have been 500,000 Ukrainians dead at this point. Russia is continuing to win and advance on the battlefield, and we are closer than ever to

nuclear war. The presidency in absentia is what we have right now. We need a president that says President Putin has spoken of negotiations. We accept that idea. We do not accept Russia's terms, but we have grounds for discussing so that we can see if we could reach an understanding together before more Ukrainians die and before the world slips into nuclear Armageddon. That's the job of the president of the United States. I'm sorry to keep each time reminding the president of his job or the secretary of state of their job, but they are not doing their job. They're not doing their jobs. You and I both have to run in a minute or two, but I need your comment on one of the savviest people in the room.

Cut number one. You know, we don't ask the West to trust us. Trust is not something which is illustrating the Western positions, the Western actions, and today there were many examples. I don't want to recite those failures to deliver on the promises, those failures to deliver on the legal obligations. Frankly, I don't care whether the West trusts us or not. The West must understand the real situation.

They don't understand anything except real politics. Let them go to the people. You are democracies, right? Ask the people what the West should do in response to Putin's proposals. He's seen it all over 30 years. He is one of the world's most experienced diplomats. And he knows, going back 34 years, which he has seen personally because he's been a senior Russian diplomat

during all this time, he knows the United States promised NATO will not move one inch eastward. It violated that promise. He knows that in 2002, the United States unilaterally abandoned the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He knows that despite the sanctity of borders, which the United States insists on, the U.S. led bombing of Serbia for 78 straight days under Clinton and Albright to break Serbia in pieces and then recognized Kosovo, a piece of Serbia, which it then used as the base for one of the largest NATO installations in the world. Sergey Lavrov knows that. He knows that in 2008, after the ambassador of the United States, William Burns, now our CIA director, told the White House that nyet means nyet, no means no, when it comes to NATO enlargement to Ukraine, George W. Bush Jr. and Richard Cheney said, we do it anyway. He he knows that. He knows that in 2015, the US signed

on to the Minsk II agreement and privately laughed at it, even though it was an agreement to bring about peace in Ukraine. He knows that in 2021, the United States refused to negotiate over a draft U.S.-Russia security arrangement that President Putin put on the table on December 15th, 2021. He knows that the United States intervened in late March 2022 to break an agreement that was nearing completion between Russia and Ukraine that would have ended this war. So when he says trust, he knows the United States has violated every single thing that it has said to Russia during this period. I could add many other examples. The U.S. unilateral withdrawal from the Intermediate Nuclear Force Agreement in 2019. But the point he's saying is, okay, you don't have trust. We still have an interest in ending this war and making peace. So let's

talk real politics. If you don't want to trust us, let's get down to the core of it and talk. But the United States is afraid of talking even. I don't know why. Biden is just afraid of negotiating. And we should remember what President John F. Kennedy said on January 20, 1961, in his great inaugural address, let us never negotiate out of fear, but let us never fear to negotiate. Well said, my dear friend. I know you have to run, as do I. Thank you very much for this gifted analysis, Professor Sachs, as always. See you next week. All the best. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Coming up at 10 o'clock Eastern, Ray McGovern, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom. I'm out.