U.S.-Led West Opposed Peace Deal In Ukraine

 Naftali Bennett, then the prime minister of Israel, found himself praying aboard a cramped, decrepit plane last year as it sailed over Kazakhstan. The long flight, arranged with help from the Mossad, was bound for Moscow to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine just after the two countries had gone to war

In an interview with author and comedian Hanoch Daum, Bennett provided a behind-the-scenes look at his efforts to establish a ceasefire and how it initially showed promise until being doomed by imperial intrigue.

• Bennett said a "decision by the West" was made to keep striking Putin through Ukraine
• His solution was to "create contact with both sides and try to mediate," leveraging his good relations with Putin and Zelensky
• While Putin was open to diplomacy, the U.S. was not
• America didn't know how to communicate at that time, neither does it know today

Putin does not think of himself as an imperialist, Bennett said, but as someone fighting against imperialism in the form of NATO expansionism.

• Putin's perception was that when the Berlin Wall came down, he reached an agreement with NATO, that they wouldn't expand NATO and would not touch the belt countries that envelop Russia."
• In addition, incorporating Ukraine into NATO has long been central to Russia's security concerns.

When no breakthrough was achieved there, Bennett realized they were running out of time before the war reached a much more devastating stage

• He kept trying to find a solution, maintaining constant communication with other governments.
• When Zelensky and Putin expressed concerns about Western security guarantees-Zelensky wanted them but worried about their fragility while Putin saw them as "no different than NATO"
• Bennett proposed the "Israeli model" of self-sufficiency: no guarantees beyond one's own military force as deterrence against foreign aggression
• Ukraine and Russia were amenable to the idea, and Bennett began bringing other countries up to speed on the good news
• And then it happened. Bennett was "blocked" by "the West" from pursuing peace.

https://contra.substack.com/p/us-led-west-opposed-peace-deal-in