People from all around the globe are demanding a Christmas ceasefire, which is reminiscent of the Christmas Truce that took place in 1914. The conflict in Ukraine has now been going on for 9 months, and winter is beginning to set in.
In the middle of World War I, opposing sides temporarily laid down their arms and enjoyed the holiday together in the area that was considered “No mans land” between their respective trenches. Over the course of many years, this unplanned act of fraternization and reconciliation has come to represent resilience and optimism.
The following are eight reasons why the Christmas season presents an opportunity for peace and an opportunity to take the war in Ukraine from the battleground to the negotiation table.
As temperatures plunge below freezing, millions of people in Ukraine are without heat, power, or water as a direct result of Russia’s bombardment of crucial infrastructure in the country. The chief executive officer of the biggest electric firm in Ukraine has encouraged millions more Ukrainians to leave the nation, apparently for a period of just a few months, in order to lessen the amount of demand placed on the power network that has been devastated by the conflict.
According to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, the conflict has been responsible for the destruction of at least 35 percent of the country’s economy. Stopping the conflict is the only way to alleviate the suffering of the Ukrainian people and prevent further economic collapse in the country.
It is now abundantly evident that the military commanders of the United States and NATO do not think, and maybe have never thought, that their publicly stated aim of assisting Ukraine in regaining all of Donbas and Crimea via the use of force is military realizable.
As a matter of fact, Ukraine’s military chief of staff did warn President Zelenskyy in April 2021 that this goal would not be attainable without “unacceptable” levels of civilian as well as military casualties, which caused him to call off plans for an intensification of the civil war at that time. The warning was given because such levels of casualties would make the goal unachievable.
Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, who is also the top military advisor to Vice President Joe Biden, made the following statement on November 9 to the Economic Club of New York: “There has to be a universal acceptance that military victory is probably, in the true meaning of the word, not attainable through military means…”
It has been stated that French and German military assessments of Ukraine’s posture are more gloomy than those conducted by the United States. These assessments predict that the present appearance of armed parity between the two sides will not last for very long. This lends credence to Milley’s view and hints that the opportunity that Ukraine has right now to negotiate from a position of relative strength may very well be its best chance in the foreseeable future.
This translates as “war-weariness,” yet it does not exactly accurately characterize the rising feeling of the populace in Europe. The sentiment is more complex than that. It may be more accurate to call it “war wisdom.”
People have had several months to think about the justifications for a lengthy, expanding conflict with no apparent ending; a war that is plunging their economy into a recession; and more people than ever before are now telling pollsters that they would support fresh attempts to find a peaceful settlement. This includes 55% of people in Germany, 49% of people in Italy, 70% of people in Romania, and 92% of people in Hungary.
According to what the Amir of Qatar said when he addressed the Assembly, “We are well aware of the complexity of the conflict involving Ukraine and Russia as well as the global and international dimension to this situation.” Despite this, we continue to advocate for an immediate ceasefire as well as a peaceful resolution to this war, as we believe that this is ultimately what will take place regardless of how long this conflict will go. Continuing to exacerbate the problem will not result in a different outcome. It will only lead to a rise in the total number of lives lost and will have even more devastating effects on the economies of Europe, Russia, and the whole world.
As a result of the sabotage of Russia’s undersea Nord Stream pipelines, which bring Russian gas to Germany, there was a discharge of methane carbon pollution that may have been the greatest ever recorded. This release was equivalent to the yearly emissions of one million automobiles. The shelling of nuclear power stations in Ukraine, especially Zaporizhzhia, which is the biggest in Europe, has given rise to real worries of the spread of lethal radiation across Ukraine and beyond.
Meanwhile, sanctions enacted by the United States and other Western nations on Russian energy have resulted in a boon for the fossil fuel industry. These sanctions have provided the fossil fuel industry with a new justification for expanding their exploration and production of dirty energy, thereby ensuring that the world will continue to head in the direction of a climate catastrophe.
Because we have consistently failed to invest the relatively small amount of our resources that would be required to eliminate poverty and hunger on our otherwise wealthy and abundant planet, we have already doomed millions of our brothers and sisters to a life of abject depravity and premature death.
Now, this is made worse by the climate catastrophe, as whole villages are being wiped out by flood waters, razed to the ground by wildfires, or starved to death by droughts and famines that last for many years at a time. When it comes to addressing issues that no one nation can adequately address on its own, the necessity for international collaboration has never been higher. However, affluent countries still choose to invest their money in weapons and conflict rather than appropriately tackling the climate problem, poverty, or hunger. This is despite the fact that these issues are all interconnected.
We just witnessed how near we are to entering a much larger battle when a single stray Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile landed in Poland and killed two people there. This incident highlighted how close we are to entering a much larger conflict. The President of Ukraine, Zelenskyy, was certain that the object in question was a Russian missile. If Poland had adopted the same stance, it would have been able to activate the mutual defense pact between NATO and Russia, which may have led to a full-scale conflict between NATO and Russia.
In the event that yet another foreseeable occurrence like that one causes NATO to launch an assault on Russia, it is only a matter of time until Russia realizes that the deployment of nuclear weapons is its only viable strategy for defending itself against an inferior military force.
We join the religious leaders from around the globe who are calling for a Xmas Truce, declaring that the holiday period presents “a much-needed opportunity to acknowledge our compassion for one another.” For these reasons and more, we are joining these religious leaders in their call for a Christmas Truce. Collectively, we have reached the conclusion that it is possible to break the cycle of devastation, pain, and death.
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