On Saturday 25 February 2023, several thousand Peace Now demonstrators gathered in London to demand negotiations to bring about a peaceful resolution to the Ukraine war.

PEACE TALKS NOW.

Almost all the protesters agreed that their main demand was for a greater effort to end the horrific conflict in Ukraine, in which possibly as many as 200,000 may have already died and with the risk of escalation threatening the end of all human life on earth.

WASHINGTON AND LONDON BLOCKED TALKS IN 2022

The evidence suggests that the United States and United Kingdom blocked Ukraine from carrying through with its proposed basis for a peace deal with Russia during negotiations in March-April 2022, with the Ukrainian newspaper Ukrayinska Pravda, citing sources close to Zelensky, claiming that Boris Johnson, on his visit to Kiev on 9 April, personally lobbied the Ukrainian president to abandon peace talks and continue the conflict.

<a href="https://peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances-peace-ukraine-now-she-must-back-negotiations" rel="noreferrer nofollow">peacenews.info/node/10287/liz-truss-helped-derail-chances...</a>

The former Israeli prime minister, Naftali Bennett, also claimed that Washington blocked his attempts to negotiate a peace deal between Kiev and Moscow.

<a href="https://thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukraine-peace/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">thegrayzone.com/2023/02/06/israeli-bennett-us-russia-ukra...</a>

A VARIETY OF VIEWS ON SENDING ARMS

Protesters had a greater variety of views on whether the West should send any arms to Ukraine at all, with many opposing any supply of arms that they believe will only prolong the conflict and suffering and risk further escalation, while others argued that sending some arms was morally justifiable to help Ukraine, but that the supply should be carefully calibrated so as not to make a wider and even more catastrophic world war more likely.

JEREMY CORBYN'S SPEECH

Jeremy Corbyn, as he concluded his brief speech, declared that 'if all the protagonists in this conflict can come together to discuss the supply of grain to the world, and come to an agreement by which ships carrying the grain from Ukraine and Russia can go to feed other people in other parts of the world; if the US is capable of contacting Russia to say that president Biden is visiting Kiev, then it is obviously possible they could come together for serious talks and serious negotiations to stop the fighting, stop the killing, stop the conflict, and bring about peace and justice."

WHY THE WEST NEEDS TO SUPPORT AND NOT BLOCK PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

1. Regardless of one's opinions on the rights and wrongs of this conflict, it has already claimed at least 100,000 lives, possibly over 200,000, including more than 8,000 civilians

<a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thousands-dead-1st-year/story?id=97247372" rel="noreferrer nofollow">abcnews.go.com/International/russia-ukraine-war-tens-thou...</a>

Its continuation also threatens global food supplies and energy prices, plunging thousands into food and fuel poverty across Europe and leading to widespread food shortages and hunger across Africa and parts of Asia.

2. Every day the war continues, and as NATO supplies of ever more powerful weaponry continue to increase, the risk of the war escalating into a terminal nuclear conflict continues to grow. Putin and much of the Russian military establishment will do almost anything to prevent a Ukrainian victory, especially one that might see Crimea, of huge strategic importance and with a clear majority Russian population, be returned to Ukraine. Many strategic analysts and Russia specialists believe that Moscow would be willing to consider using at least tactical nuclear weapons, and that this could quickly escalate into global conflict. The ongoing conflict is also jeopardising all the remaining arms control agreements which prevent another nuclear arms race, so that even if Ukraine is victorious, we risk entering a new cold war which is likely to end, soon rather than later, in a nuclear conflict that will terminate all organised human life on earth.

3. The Ukraine War has led to a huge increase in the consumption of fossil fuels, and the reversal of key policies in the fight against climate change. It also hinders crucial cooperation between Russia and the West on this urgent issue with regards measures to curb emissions, as well as cooperation between Russian and Western scientists, particularly as Russia occupies a large part of the arctic, where research findings are vital for our understanding of how rapidly climate change is occuring.

4. We have to acknowledge that some of the West's recently declared war aims are highly questionable such as returning Crimea to Ukraine. Not only are the Russians unlikely to ever consider entering peace negotiations over its return, but over 60% of the population is Russian according to the last 2001 Ukrainian census and only 24% ( about 1 in 4) are Ukrainian. So it will be difficult to incorporate the territory back into Ukraine without at least some sort of referendum on Crimea's status. It also has to be acknowledged that the millions of Russians who live within Ukraine have for years faced harsh discrimination with severe restrictions on the importation of books in the Russian language since 2017 (Russian books had previously accounted for 60% of all titles), restrictions on the use of Russian language in schools and Russophobic attacks in the streets.

<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine" rel="noreferrer nofollow">en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Ukraine</a>

The Russians in the Donbass area have also suffered from years of shelling during a prolonged war Ukrainian forces waged against them, with a total death toll up to December 2021 (including both Ukrainian and insurgent forces) of over 14,000, including over 3,000 civilians killed. Yes, there was an inflow of Russian arms which also stoked the conflict, but many Russians viewed this as legitimate support for a population which was under attack from the Ukrainian army.

<a href="https://ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-related civilian casualties as of 31 December 2021 (rev 27 January 2022) corr EN_0.pdf" rel="noreferrer nofollow">ukraine.un.org/sites/default/files/2022-02/Conflict-relat...</a>

5. Finally, whatever one's views on the Ukrainian conflict, the evidence suggests that Western strategy is failing. Russian forces continue to gain ground in Ukraine on a daily basis, despite an enormous inflow of NATO arms. Russian industry is able to be fully mobilised on a war footing in a way that the West, with its just in time corporate controlled arms industry, can't compete with. NATO has already acknowledged that by the summer of this year, Ukraine is likely to run out of artillery shells. What is brutally termed the "burn rate" of NATO supplied military equipment (and indeed of Ukrainian young men) is far higher than its replenishment rate. At the same time, despite all the sanctions the Russian economy is predicted to grow faster this year than either Germany or the United Kingdom.

<a href="https://www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-now-forecast-to-grow-faster-than-germanys-and-britains-in-2023-how-is-that-possible/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.grid.news/story/global/2023/02/01/russias-economy-is-...</a>

The ruble has actually gained slightly in strength against the US dollar, relative to its value a year ago in February 2022,

<a href="https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=USD</a>