‘A formula of permanent war’

IssueOctober - November 2023
Feature by Milan Rai

Yurii Sheliazhenko was interviewed on 10 August about the raid on his home and the charges against him, on Democracy Now!.

During the interview, Yurii said: ‘I was searched, and now I am brought to this repressive system for my alleged justification of Russian aggression, in time when our government organized the summit in Saudi Arabia to promote so-called peace formula of Zelenskyy. [see p3 for more on ‘the Ukrainian Peace Formula’]

‘And this peace formula, in fact, is a formula of permanent war.

‘A key point of so-called formula of peace of president Zelenskyy is a “Kyiv Security Compact”, which was developed by working group of [former NATO secretary general Anders Fogh] Rasmussen [and Andrii] Yermak [head of the office of the president of Ukraine]....

‘And this Kyiv Security Compact includes a Western military supply for Ukraine during decades. And this Kyiv Security Compact also includes a total mobilisation of Ukrainian population to war.’

The Kyiv Security Compact, published in September 2022, says that the strongest security guarantee for Ukraine ‘lies in its capacity to defend itself against an aggressor’, which means ‘large defence forces, robust capabilities, and a strong, reformed defence industry’.

This in turn would require, among other things, ‘a multi-decade effort of sustained investment in Ukraine’s defence industrial base, scalable weapons transfers and intelligence support from allies’ – along with intensive, long-term training by, and exercises with, NATO forces.

The compact, which includes an aggressive sanctions policy and some form of security guarantees from Western nations, also calls for a ‘[s]elf-defence territorial force for all civilians aged above 18 years old... including a reserve service that can be sporadically called for active duty.’

This is what Yurii means by ‘a total mobilisation of Ukrainian population to war’.

Topics: Ukraine