Secretary General Will Meet Putin to Talk Humanitarian Aid. But No Safe Haven…?

UN Secretary General Mr. António Guterres will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday. Reports are that he hopes to prevail upon Putin

to allow for the safe passage of civilians from areas of conflict and the delivery of humanitarian aid to hard-hit areas.

(Reuters, April 19, 2022)

Never mind that this will come after Guterres spent weeks leading a chorus of world leaders pleading for Putin to allow just that, to no avail.

More to the point, I can see Putin disarming the secretary general with a question similar to the one Joseph Stalin famously posed at the Tehran conference during WWII. Reports vary; but here is how The Kane Republican memorialized that question on October 6, 1945:

________

Premier Marshal Stalin made a cryptic remark one time when he was told that the Pope did not entirely favor one of the plans advanced by the Soviet armies or one of the stories about the battling Russians’ antics. Stalin said, ‘How many divisions has he?’

________

Except I suspect Putin has even less regard for the secretary general than Stalin had for the Pope. Therefore, I imagine him attempting to dismiss Guterres as follows:

With all due respect, Mr. secretary general, I have ordered a “special military operation” to denazify and demilitarize Ukraine. Because, as you well know, a bunch of Nazi gangsters assumed power only after our Western partners orchestrated one of their so-called color revolutions to overthrow the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych. And they betrayed their own democratic values to do this just because Yanukovych was more friendly towards Russia than Europe.

But you have no army to deploy to stop my army from executing my orders. So I think you should stop wasting my time.

Of course Putin could be forgiven for thinking that would force the secretary general to shut up, retreat (back) to the sidelines, and watch history repeat itself. But I urge Guterres to do everything necessary to go into this meeting armed with guarantees that empower him to inform Putin as follows:

With all due respect, Mr. president, I am here to inform you that, after extraordinary meetings of the United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention and the Responsibility to Protect, and in consultation with the government of Ukraine, the UN has decided to create and protect humanitarian corridors from all major cities in Ukraine to a safe haven in western Ukraine – complete with a no-fly zone.

Pursuant to paragraphs 138 and 139 of the World Summit Outcome resolution, which you and other heads of government adopted in 2005, the UN has enlisted members states to help Ukraine deal with its ongoing humanitarian crisis and prevent the unfolding genocide and crimes against humanity, which Russian troops are allegedly committing there. Because, as you know, paragraph 139 states in part that

we are prepared to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner … in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.

I fully appreciate your Stalinesque quip about my lack of an army. But may I remind you, Mr. President, that 140 member nations have already voted to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine. And I’m sure you fully appreciate that Russia’s manifest conflict of interest makes bringing this matter before the Security Council a nonstarter. Therefore, we are proceeding pursuant to the authority inherent in that vote of the General Assembly. In which case, it behooves you to know that the challenge for me was not having an army but determining what size it should be.

In any event, as Ukraine is the host country, I need only inform you that the humanitarian corridors and safe haven will be protected by tens of thousands of soldiers from Africa, Asia, South America, Europe, and North America – all under the auspices of the United Nations. And I am hereby putting you on notice to have your forces defer to their humanitarian mission in every respect accordingly.

With that, Guterres should thank Putin for his time and attention and then beat a hasty … retreat.

To Meet Zelensky Too

Reports are that Guterres intends to head straight to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky. Except, remarkably, he might find Zelensky even more hostile than Putin.

‘It is simply wrong to go first to Russia and then to Ukraine,’ Zelensky told reporters in the Ukraine capital. ‘There is no justice and no logic in this order,’ he added.

‘The war is in Ukraine, there are no bodies in the streets of Moscow. It would be logical to go first to Ukraine, to see the people there, the consequences of the occupation, he said.

(Agence France-Presse, April 23, 2022 )

This, of course, was the same grand press conference, given the circumstances, during which Zelensky took it upon himself to announce and brush off this closely held US secret:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will visit Kyiv on Sunday.

‘I don’t think this is a secret that people from the US are coming to us tomorrow, State Secretary Mr. Blinken and the Defense Secretary (Lloyd Austin) who are coming to us,’ Zelensky said at a press conference held in an underground subway station in the Ukrainian capital.

Zelensky also said, ‘We will be expecting, when the security will allow, the President of the United States to come and to talk to us.

(CNN, April 23, 2022)

As it happens, this was just the latest instance of Zelensky willfully lacing gratitude with too much self-righteous indignation and contempt. No doubt you recall how he accused America of being complicit with Russia and having the blood of Ukrainians on its hands because it was not getting weapons to Ukraine fast enough.

But I knew all that Churchillian praise was getting to his head when he allowed his spokesman to begin hailing him as the leader of the free world. Perhaps this is why, when Biden visited Poland recently, Zelensky sat in Kyiv and demanded to know why Biden was too afraid to brave the war zone to come to him. Muhammad might’ve gone to the mountain, but not Zelensky…

Indeed, given the way they are falling all over themselves to do so, it’s as if visiting Zelensky is for Western leaders now what visiting Mecca is for Muslims. Never mind that part of the reason Ukraine was so unprepared to defend itself is that Zelensky spent months ridiculing – as American hysteria causing panic – Biden’s warnings about Putin’s plan to invade.

I heartily reiterate that everyone should stand in solidarity with Ukrainians, and even in awe at the Churchillian way Zelensky is rallying them to bedevil Russian Pootzies aping German Nazis. But America never gave Churchill all he requested. And Britain was fending off a Nazi blitzkrieg that makes the Pootzi one Ukraine is fending off look like a drive by shooting. Yet Churchill never accused America of being complicit with the Germans or having blood on its hands.

So Zelensky would do well to emulate Churchill’s situational and geopolitical awareness. For starters, he should do as Churchill did by making time to sleep, shower, and shave. I am sure that would do wonders for his thinking and temperament.

Because disclosing Blinken and Austin’s plan to visit today was a reckless breach of safety protocol, which willfully endangers their lives. Except that Zelensky has become a proverbial sacred cow.

Only this explains world leaders braving a war zone to visit him. This is why no one dares call this spade a spade for his increasingly self-righteous and, yes, even ungrateful behavior.

But this all smacks of the Ukrainian tail wagging the Western dog. Moreover, I am concerned that Zelensky is getting a taste of what it’s like to be a strongman. And he appears to be finding it every bit as addictive as hillbillies find opioids. Western leaders beware…

NOTE: Apropos of pleading to no avail, that’s what I did in my March 22 commentary for Ukraine to “fight fire with fire” by bombing cities in Russia. Because, besides one daring strike on one oil storage facility, Ukraine has shown little willingness or ability to do so. But this is why the Russian people find it so easy to believe Putin’s propaganda that he’s not waging a genocidal, scorched-earth war in Ukraine…