“Peace” activist controversially advocates negotiation of Russian demands for Ukrainian territory

A prominent Greek-Canadian lawyer by the name of Dimitri Lascaris, self-described as a “peace activist” and “journalist” travelled across Russia in April and subsequently conducted a “Tour for Peace” across Canada in June and July.

Mr. Lascaris is known for having come second-place in the leadership contest of a political party with seats in the House of Commons, receiving 5,768 first round votes for his leadership candidacy and receiving 10,081 eighth round votes on the last ballot. He also has connections to the famous intellectual Noam Chomsky and to Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters, has over 18,000 Twitter followers, and is known for vocal disruptions of public presentations by government figures over issues of alleged injustices in Canadian foreign policy.

On July 3 Mr. Lascaris spoke to an audience of roughly 40 people at Ottawa’s Prime Venue Banquet and Reception Centre. On July 4, he repeated the same presentation for a wider online audience in a webinar hosted by the Kingston Peace Council. During these presentations he advocated for:

• Robust humanitarian aid for the innocent victims of war, to be delivered to victims directly

• Sanctuary for Ukrainian refugees;

• An arms embargo in the warring parties (both Russia and Ukraine);

• No economic sanctions that are not approved by the United Nations;

• A legal prohibition by Canadians in the hostilities

However, notwithstanding his claim of concern for the welfare of Ukrainians, Mr. Lascaris’ advocacy and arguments have been challenged and condemned by Ukrainian diaspora from across Canada. We at the PEN have sought to reproduce some of the arguments presented by Mr. Lascaris, while also sharing the feedback that we received consulting with Ukrainians via a Facebook group, “Ottawa supports Ukraine - OSUDemocracy”.

Mr. Lascaris dedicated multiple slides in his presentation to the question, “What might a negotiated peace look like?” When discussing the moral implications of Russia’s demand that “recognition by Kiev and the international community of its new territorial realities are essential”, he explained that “Borders are not sacred, human lives are.” Mr. Lascaris further identified “The right to self-determination”, referring to the Russian-speaking residents of the Luhansk Oblast and Donbas regions that are recognized as Ukrainian territory by a plurality of states, but whom Russia claims want separation from Ukraine. Mr. Lascaris further cited “The right to security and the risk of retribution” of said Russian-speaking residents, arguing that Ukrainian recapture of said territories would be followed by widespread reprisals by the government of Ukraine against local citizens.

Mr. Lascaris further clarifies that Ukrainian territorial concessions to Ukraine would allow the war to end sooner, thus sparing further Ukrainian lives. He wrote in his slides, “Ukraine is losing a war of attrition… Ukraine recently lost the battle of Bakhmut, the bloodiest battle of the war,” and argued that the political reality of popular support within Russia for claiming the territories of the Luhansk Oblast and Donbas regions makes a Ukrainian military victory impossible. He writes of his controversial trip to Russia, “I spoke with dozens of academics, students, economic experts, humanitarian volunteers, journalists, and ordinary citizens… The vast majority expressed support for Russia’s government and argued that its military intervention was necessary… To the extent these persons criticized Russia’s government, their criticism was that it should have intervened earlier in Ukraine and that it had not acted aggressively enough to defeat Ukraine.”

However, one of the Ukrainians we consulted, Veronica, strongly objected to these arguments. (She did not consent to publishing of her last name, due to stated fear of Russian reprisals against her family.) She wrote to us at length:

“Ukraine liberated Kyiv oblast by 2 April 2022, Kharkiv oblast in August-September, and the city of Kherson on 11 November which proved our ability to defeat Russian forces. By Lascaris's logic, Ukraine should have given up on all these people and territories. On Ukrainians, who met Ukrainian army with flowers and tears in their eyes - it's enough to just watch a couple of videos on YouTube on the day of Kherson liberation to understand what kind of emotions our people felt at that moment.

“I myself was born in Sevastopol, Crimea. In 2000s, my family moved to Kakhovka (city near the recently destroyed Kakhovka dam in Kherson region) which is now also under occupation. My younger sister managed to escape last summer, but many of my relatives, including my mother, stayed there. Why? Because it's their land, their city, their houses and they are waiting for Ukrainian forces. Unfortunately, I cannot go to Kakhovka for obvious reasons and I failed to find any arguments for them to escape the city leave and everything they've built to Russian occupiers.

“After each liberation, dozens of war crimes were uncovered. As a human rights activist, he speaks very little of actual human rights violations in Ukraine. I couldn't find any of his commentary on the Bucha massacre, mass graves, torture and castration in Izium, or the children's torture chambers in Kherson.

“My friend was kidnapped in Kakhovka and tortured for 3 days for taking part in Ukrainian meetings against invasion. We cannot imagine how many such cases are there in the occupied territories. If such a kidnapping happened in Ottawa, wouldn't people be outrageous? Wouldn't they want their government to punish the criminal? That's why Ukraine fights back, to save its own people. If we stop fighting, the mass graves will all over Ukrainian territory because Russia will never leave 'voluntarily'.”

A member of the Facebook group who is not Ukrainian, a certain Jason Keays, also criticized Mr. Lascaris’ presentation, arguing, “At no place in his propositions does he give Ukraine something, because the starting point of his presentation is that Ukraine will lose the war if it continues and it will end in a nuclear war… The guy is doing PR for nuclear blackmail.” Mr. Keays also mocked Mr. Lascaris’ portrayal of Russian public opinion, “The vast majority of persons I met support Putin, says the peace activist who visited a country where you get 15 years in jail if you say the Special Military Operation is a war.” (Mr. Lascaris claimed in his presentation that Mr. Keays “has been smearing me sideways for months… it’s like a full-time job for him,” after Mr. Keays asked a question about Mr. Lascaris’ trip to an alleged filtration camp.)

Mr. Lascaris also discussed the Russian demand for “Ukraine’s neutral and non-aligned status, its refusal to join NATO and the EU.” He claimed that “There’s no ‘right to join NATO’… Admission into the EU is a backdoor to NATO membership… Excluding Ukraine from the EU would not prevent Ukraine from having robust trade relations with EU states… A neutral Ukrainian buffer between Russia and NATO is good for us all.”

Mr. Keays has likewise rebuked these arguments, “A neutral Ukraine mean an isolated Ukraine freed to be taken by Russia.”

Furthermore, Mr. Lascaris identified the Russian demand for “denationalization of Ukraine”. He suggested that there are “Some possible solutions: disarm and dismantle ultra-nationalist units within the Ukrainian military; abolish the national holiday for Stepan Bandera, and launch an educational program about the harsh realities of Banderism.” Another of our Ukrainian contacts, Oleksandr Kohulko, a migrant to Ottawa as of 2 years ago, had an objection to this line of reasoning, “Stephen Bandera was discredited by Soviet and then Russia propaganda. He was one of the key persons on confrontation of Soviet Union occupation of Ukraine. But main question is - how a national holiday in Ukraine allows Russia to start a full-scale invasion of Ukraine?”

(Mr. Kohulko also denied Mr. Lascaris’ claim in the presentation that before the invasion there was a “civil war in southeast of Ukraine”. He flatly claimed, “It was a Russia invasion”, referring to the alleged unofficial Russian soldiers which allegedly were sent as separatist fighters into Ukrainian territories from 2014 to 2021.)

For the sake of brevity, this article has not listed the entirety of Mr. Lascaris’ arguments. However, the activist lawyer was contacted about this article with our question, “Do you believe that Western governments or citizens should be supporting the peace movement within Russia, and if so, how should they do so?” Mr. Lascaris did not respond to multiple attempts at communication.

Stefan Klietsch is PERC’s Treasurer. He currently studies Political Science for his Master of Arts program at Carleton University.