Elon Musk is never one to shy away from controversy. He offered to buy Twitter and remove all moderation. He also said he’d welcome Donald Trump onto the platform. Perhaps he didn’t get the message that the former president has called him a “bullsh—artist.”
Now, Musk is getting involved in the Russian invasion and occupation of parts of Ukraine. He’s offering a “peace plan.”
Hours after posting a cartoon of a T-Rex taking a shower, Musk put up a poll for his 107 million Twitter followers about a hypothetical referendum for the people of the four regions of eastern Ukraine illegally annexed last week by Russia, where the residents would decide which country to live in. If Ukraine and Russia agreed to the vote, Moscow would get a sweetener: Formal recognition of the illegal 2014 annexation of Crimea, with full water rights and Ukrainian neutrality.
The actual wording of the tweet is as follows:
Ukraine-Russia Peace:
– Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.
– Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).
– Water supply to Crimea assured.
– Ukraine remains neutral.
Even Musk’s followers disagreed.
While the first poll had 63.8 percent of the 1.4 million respondents voting no, 54.6 percent of the 973,000 voters said that the people of eastern Ukraine and Crimea should have the right to join the country of their choosing.
Ukrainians were not pleased.
“F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you,” Ukraine’s Ambassador to Germany Andrij Melnyk wrote in response to Musk’s Twitter thread. . .
Kyiv Post, a Ukrainian news outlet, also responded to Musk’s poll, referencing his South African birthplace. “Elon, you’re a cool guy and thanks for the Starlink but it’d be so very wonderful if you were to carry out votes on things that you know about. We don’t carry out votes on apartheid and Nelson Mandela,” the publication wrote.
However, the Kremlin was pleased, Business Insider says. After all, it offered them a way to save face—and keep Crimea.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters in a call it was “positive,” however, that Musk was looking for ways to peacefully end the situation in Ukraine, per RIA.
Peskov said that unlike many professional diplomats, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO was seeking ways to find peace, RIA reported. According to Peskov, achieving peace was impossible if Russia’s conditions weren’t fulfilled, per the report.
Musk says he fears that a desperate Russia would turn to the use of nuclear weapons. But few experts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear threats. He is trying to justify it by saying that Russia is being threatened, but the West has demanded that Ukraine keep all its attacks inside its own borders. As an aggressor and invader, it’s hard for Putin to push the idea that he is somehow being threatened.
The timing is also strange. In recent weeks, Ukraine has taken the war to Russian-held territories, with the Russian military often retreating desperately, even leaving equipment behind. Russia seems to be running short of both equipment and soldiers.
Russia has lost more than 700 tanks in the incursion, and has begun to put rusty old T-62 tanks from the 1960s into action. Even some of them have already been captured. Meanwhile, Putin is drafting men into action. A reported 200,000 young men have left the country to avoid the draft.
With Ukraine on the march, they are not likely to agree to a “peace plan” that forces them to cede part of their country, even if it has been occupied for eight years. They probably won’t be willing to negotiate until they are stymied on the battlefield.
Throughout most of history, Crimea has belonged to Russia. But in 1954, USSR Premier Nikita Kruschev gave the peninsula to Ukraine. At that time, both were part of the Soviet Union, so the action would be equivalent to the United States giving Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to become part of Wisconsin. On a national level, it made little difference. It’s also important to note that both soviet republics approved the transfer.
As for the idea of having the people vote, it would be like saying the area from Texas through California should vote whether to return to Mexico. And the thing to remember is that Russia has installed bureaucrats to run the Russian-occupied territories, and any vote would be in an atmosphere of heavily armed Russian troops wandering the streets. And, besides, Russia has already said there has been a vote and they don’t need another.
The purpose of the ceasefire at this point would just be to halt Ukraine’s advances.
But it’s not the first time a famous person has chimed in. Back in May, former Nixon advisor, Henry Kissinger, now 99 years old, told Ukraine it should give up territory to appease Putin and end the fighting, according to the Washington Examiner.
“Negotiations need to begin in the next two months before it creates upheavals and tensions that will not be easily overcome. Ideally, the dividing line should be a return to the status quo ante,” Kissinger said. “Pursuing the war beyond that point would not be about the freedom of Ukraine, but a new war against Russia itself.”
His plan of returning “to the status quo ante” implies that he believes Ukraine should agree to a deal that would restore the situation as it was on Feb. 24, when Russia began its invasion. Such an agreement would result in Russia maintaining its control of the Crimean Peninsula and its informal control of parts of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian leaders have long opposed the idea of giving up any territory in a deal to end the war.
As long as Ukrainians keep moving forward on the battlefield, they are not likely to negotiate anything. They feel that total victory is within their grasp. But as winter moves in, their attitude may change.
