Pope Francis’ Peace Push Comes At A Pivotal Moment In The NATO-Russian Proxy War

The resumption of peace talks is unlikely, but a trusted and neutral third party’s mediation could still avert the worst-case scenario of World War III by miscalculation if each actor’s possibly false perceptions of the others’ plans are corrected before it’s too late.

Pope Francis urged Zelensky to resume peace talks with Russia in part of a previously recorded interview whose excerpts were just published over the weekend. He said that “I think that the strongest one is the one who sees the situation, who thinks about the people and has the courage of the white flag, and the one who negotiates. When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate.”

He added that “negotiation is never about surrendering, but the courage of not leading the country to suicide”, concluding that “You may be ashamed, but how many deaths will there be in the end? Negotiate in time, look for countries to mediate.” His words came shortly after the Ukrainian Intelligence Committee warned about the worst-case scenario from their perspective whereby Russia achieves a military breakthrough across the Line of Contact (LOC) coinciding with their country’s political collapse.  

Escalation is in the air too after French President Macron revealed that NATO is debating whether to conventionally intervene in Ukraine, which he later said that he might authorize in the event that Russia advances on Kiev or Odessa. The Baltic States and Poland implied interest in deploying their troops there alongside France’s on “non-combat” missions like demining and training, but which would really enable them to easily surge eastward to block Russia in the event that it achieves a breakthrough.

Two other narrative developments coincided with the aforesaid political and military ones. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) suddenly shared the terms of spring 2022’s draft Russian-Ukrainian peace treaty and then CNN cited unnamed American sources to exclusively report that the US seriously thought that Russia might use tactical nukes in late 2022 after suffering a spree of setbacks that pushed the LOC eastward. All of these recent events cultivate a distinct impression about the present state of affairs.

On the one hand, it’s clear that the situation along the LOC is probably about to deteriorate in the coming months judging by the Ukrainian Intelligence Committee’s worst-case scenario forecast and Macon openly talking about the conditions under which France might conventionally intervene. The US likely expects that the latter could spike the risk of World War III by miscalculation too due to the comparatively low threshold that its officials reportedly believe that Russia has for using tactical nukes.

On the other hand, however, this possibly apocalyptic sequence of events could be preemptively averted if Zelensky heeds Pope Francis’ wise words about resuming peace talks even at the expense of de facto ceding territory in order to stop committing national suicide. The WSJ’s previously mentioned report indirectly proved how pragmatically flexible President Putin actually is, unlike the way in which the West misportrays him as some kind of unwavering ideologue.

Taken together, the distinct impression that one is left with is that the window for resuming peace talks is rapidly closing as it becomes more likely that Russia might achieve a breakthrough somewhere along the LOC, which could in turn prompt France’s threatened intervention. It’s at this point that a neutral and trusted third party like Pope Francis or India could diplomatically intervene behind the scenes to probe all sides’ interests in resuming talks or at least learn how far each is willing to go in certain scenarios.

If neither Russia, the West, nor Ukraine know how the other two would react in the earlier referenced worst-case scenario from Kiev’s perspective, then it’ll become more likely that at least one of them will miscalculate, possibly in a disastrous way. It’s therefore in all of their interests for a neutral third party that they all trust to learn the basics about their positions and pass it along to the others for the purpose of preventing the undeclared and thus far limited NATO-Russian hot war in Ukraine from worsening.

This doesn’t mean that Zelensky will listen to Pope Francis by waving the white flag and stopping his country’s suicide, which is the best-case scenario for all responsible stakeholders, but just that the worst-case one could more confidently be offset if everyone had more clarity about each other’s motives. Russia might not even be interested in advancing on Kiev (again) and/or Odessa, but the possibly false perception that it’s plotting to do so could push France to intervene, thus needlessly worsening tensions.

Likewise, Zelensky might refuse to resume talks even if the frontline collapses so long as he assumes that a “coalition of the willing” will intervene to block Russia’s advance, but this might also be a mistake since no such coalition might be forthcoming or at least not under the conditions that he expects. In that case, while Kiev and/or Odessa might not be threatened by Russia, he could still risk losing more territory to it beyond the administrative borders of those four regions that voted to join Russia (like around Kharkov).

If Russia suspects that Ukraine and the West are cooking up the pretext to justify the latter’s conventional intervention in the conflict, such as Macron’s proposal to officially deploy troops there for “non-combat” purposes, then it might escalate its special operation to an all-out war to preempt that. It’s been comparatively restrained thus far and sensitive to civilian casualties, but both characteristics could quickly become a thing of the past if it feels that it’s “now or never” to break through the LOC.

It’s for these reasons why a neutral and trusted third party should diplomatically intervene behind the scenes to obtain insight about their calculations and then pass them along to the others with their permission so as to more responsibly manage the “fog of war” at this pivotal moment in the conflict. The resumption of peace talks is unlikely, but this could still avert the worst-case scenario of World War III by miscalculation if each actor’s possibly false perceptions of the others’ plans are corrected before it’s too late.