I'm John Bats with my colleague, Anato Levin, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

He has done us all the favor, along with his colleague, George Beebe, of listing what is credible, what is possible, in a settlement between Moscow and Keefe and Washington and Brussels.

That's enough. That includes a major piece of the global north. The UN, where is it? It has not been much present in my reading these last

years. How do you imagine the UN can participate in this settlement on a toll?

Well, I think, I mean, a UN

peacekeeping force, or at least monitors, will be essential to patrol an eventual ceasefire

line, as in other parts of the world. I mean, it's no good dreaming of a UN force that would

be big enough to defeat a new Russian invasion, or for that matter,

a Ukrainian attack on Russia.

But, I mean, just having them there will give much greater security, especially if the UN

force is composed of people from countries that Russia would be very unwilling to annoy,

like India and China and Brazil.

And Russia has categorically excluded the possibility of a European peacekeeping force

because they see that as NATO by another name.

But the United Nations, unfortunately, I have to say,

has been so crushed, above all by the

United States in recent decades, that, you know, in the past, once upon the time, you know,

in the days of Dag Hammerskoll, which admittedly, you know, 60 years ago now, you know, the

UN Secretary General would have been at the very

heart of this proposing a peace settlement, you know, putting together a peacekeeping force.

Unfortunately, the present Secretary General and much of his staff are so cautious, so

afraid of offending anybody that they, as you say, they had been absent.

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