Jerusalem Post Letters to the Editor, June 12, 2023
Amotz Asa-El, in “Mr. Putin: Stop this war” (June 9), demonstrates that he does not understand who Putin is. Otherwise, after what Putin has done to the Ukrainians, Asa-El would not write: “One meeting, Mr. President, one meeting with Ukraine’s leader can stop the bloodbath and reboot your situation. One meeting, after which the two of you will jointly order a ceasefire, launch a humanitarian rescue operation, and start diplomatic talks that will take years to produce peace but minutes to undo war.”
Zelensky will not negotiate with Putin for the similar reason Netanyahu will not negotiate with Iran – there is nothing to negotiate about. Iran wants to destroy Israel, Putin wants to destroy Ukraine. Ukraine knows that unless Russia withdraws to the 1991 borders, nothing will have changed and Putin would just wait until he is ready to attack again.
Perhaps Asa-El does not realize what the Russian general staff has been considering. Yuri Fedorov is one of the best military experts and what he said was shocking. The Russians had decided to use more drastic means to stop the Ukrainian counteroffensive since they realized that they cannot stop the Ukrainians by military means.
Freezing Ukrainians in the winter by destroying their electrical infrastructure and forcing them to negotiate on Russia’s terms did not work. The other crazy idea, which has been under consideration for more than a year, is to attack the cascade of hydroelectric dams on the Dnieper by using passenger airliners like the Il-62 or Tu-154, not in use because of the sanctions, fill them up with 18 tons of explosives and target the dams.
Dictators should not be appeased. Churchill spent his wilderness years 1929-1939 trying to get the message across. Some have still not heard it 80 years on.
MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC
Beersheba
