Just as their offer to remove nukes from their puppet state in Belarus is not a serious thing of any negotiating value - their demands are all absurd.

Agree Russia is speedrunning it’s own collapse, and that’s just fine and dandy.

I think that the Russian Empire is taking the same path as the Ottoman Empire. Long term collapse, in phases. The Ottomans were an expansionist global power spanning Asia, Africa and Europe from the 16th to 20th century. They couldn’t maintain their massive multi-ethnic empire while having the inefficienceies of a centralized Turkish heartland monarchy for government. They went through long term declines of military quality, political corruption, loss of trade networks, loss of presigious outer colonies, massive internal stagnation, refusal to modernize, patronage over competence, and losing wars they were expected to win. They collapsed in stages over 300+ years, finalliy landing as a mostly ethnically homogenous rump state of Turkey after their defeat in WW1.

That’s Russia’s future. They already have had a couple phases of collapse in 1917 and again in 1991. Only a “Rough Daddy” strongman rule has prevented more collapse since. But the bill is coming due - and they will likely end up a reduced city-state republic from Murmask to Rostov, and St. Petersburg to the Urals. Everything else will be gobbled up by China or break away in post-Putin ethno-corporate warlord power struggles. The painful internal migration and rampant banditry will be a turbo-charged version of the devastating Partition of India.

And they deserve it. Hopefully they will fight among each other at a smaller scale instead of invading their neighbours.

They dropped earlier restrictions on Ukraine’s army size. That was unenforceable anyways, and not as relevant on an increasingly automated battlefield. They didn’t expcitly ask for EU membership to be removed. They aren’t demanding snap elections in Ukraine. They deserve NONE of these things, by the way, but that “reality on the ground” as they like to say, has never stopped them from making obscene demands before.

No, they never have. They live by the oddly capitalist idea that if you’re not growing, you’re shrinking.

They have always “negotiated” this way - demand everything, concede nothing, wait in stonewalled silence until the feckless, peace-worshipping pussies in the west give you something.

But that policy, used extensively through the entire 20th centry, was underwritten by the threat of violence. The assumption that Russia was capable of great destruction and that the West wouldn’t be willing to endure any suffering. In short - the threat.

But - Russia has already shown all its cards. Their army is effectively spent and incapable of progress in Ukraine, much less invading the Baltics, Poland or Romania. The threat of what they might do has no teeth anymore. We’ve seen what they can do. We’ve seen their limits. Now, they stamp their feet and hold their breath like a petulant toddler demanding a cookie.

This is a childish tactic, but they’re a childish country. Ukraine will wait them out until Trump is further weakened or something fundamental changes in Moscow or Washington. There’s absolutely no point making a deal with these black hearted lunatics. The suffering goes on, because of the maniacal delusions of an overpromoted gangster ghoul.

Finland has a 900k strong full time and reserve army - the same size as Ukraines, plus it’s fresh and the Russian army is wrecked . And it’s MUCH tougher terrain than Ukraine for an invader to navigate.

And Finland has the Drone Template of the Ukrainian experience to follow. A state as clear eyed about Russian tendnencies with a deep microeletronics industrial base is perfectly suited to destroy the Russians’ Low-Tech, High-Brutality army.

Not to mention that if Putin put one low-functioning grunt across the border in Finland, then Sweden, Norway, Poland and Romania would likely act unilaterally of whever NATO decided to do, because the threat to the Eastern boundary of the alliance is not a theoretical plaything. If there must be war, it’s better to fight it in someone else’s yard before it spreads to your own. Krasnov can run interference in the U.S. and cause fuckery with with NATO policy, but he can’t stop the Eastern euopean boundary states from reacting to Russia’s clear goals of conquest.

There’s no way Russia can seriously menace Finland in 2027. This is all revealing of what Putin’s plans were in the first place.

To be WAY kinder to them than they deserve, you can only take things off the table in negotiations. You can’t put new things on unless there is major changes on the battlefield. And if you thought that you had the momentum what is plainly a war of national conquest…you wouldn’t be negotiating for peace, even on absurd terms.

So - put yourself in the muddy gumboots of a black hearted Russian gangster ghoul - you might as well ask for absolutely everything at the outset. And they have.

There is optimism because of what’s NOT on the table. Russia knows Ukraine won’t accept this. They know they won’t probably accept ANY of it. They will amend these terms while their situation worsens and Krasnov gets less and less useful before January when the new Congress sits. He may well have some procedural fuckery planned for that anyways - but even the uproar around that would make him less focused on Ukraine.

They dropped earlier restrictions on Ukraine’s army size. That was unenforceable anyways, and not as relevant on an increasingly automated battlefield. They didn’t expcitly ask for EU membership to be removed. They aren’t demanding snap elections in Ukraine. They deserve NONE of these things, by the way, but that “reality on the ground” as they like to say, has never stopped them from making obscene demands before.

They are only negotiating because they are well and truly fucked. It’s vulgar and nasty what they’re asking for, and insulting theatrics above all - but ukraine doesn’t have to accept any of this for now. They continue to endure brutal terror attacks, but Russia’s position will weaken going forward too.

That’s Russia’s future. They already have had a couple phases of collapse in 1917 and again in 1991. Only a “Rough Daddy” strongman rule has prevented more collapse since. But the bill is coming due - and they will likely end up a reduced city-state republic from Murmask to Rostov, and St. Petersburg to the Urals. Everything else will break away in post-Putin ethno-corporate warlord power struggles. The painful internal migration and rampant banditry will be a turbo-charged version of the devastating Partition of India.

That wouldn’t be of much use to them since ~20% of Russian households do not have indoor plumbing and ~66% of people in rural areas do not even have indoor toilets. Source. I’m sure plenty of them would cheer for the nuke dropping on Moscow though.