Yes, Ukraine is suffering. And obviously, they want the killing to stop. But Russia’s negotiating position here is absurd. Their talking points are just being parroted by U.S. stooges. But - no serious minded person thinks Russia is likely to abide by any agreement anyways, especially one without HARD security guarantees for Ukraine’s sovreignty. U.S. and Russian pressure to sign a bad deal seems on it’s face desperate, given their obvious original war aims of complete national conquest and annhiliation of Ukrainian society.
Russia only neogtiates when they think they can’t simply seize more by force. They appear to be at that point, and post-war russia is going to be a chaotic mess. The reward of Donbas and Crimea, territory they’ve already essentially controlled for a decade, hardly seems worth all the losses they’ve taken militarily, economnically, politically and demographically
So what should Ukraine do? If they care about a lasting peace - stalling and continuing to bleed the Russian army might be the better option. These are not good peace terms. Yet.
imo, putin doesn’t seriously think any of these offers will be accepted, he’s just taking every opportunity he can to show how much of a joke the US is on the international stage
Other than the lolz, what does he gain from that. His most useful asset Trump is an obese octogenarian with the vitals of a diabetic house cat. He has to get something before he croaks, or is neutered politcally in midterms next year. Or - in the violent insurrection that follows if he tries to void those elections.
every time trump is allowed to embarass himself and the country it lowers the US’s relevance on the world-stage. showing just how incredibly incompetent the rest of the US government appartus is
everyone is coping on the idea shit is going to “return to normal” when he croaks…imo, it won’t. and “normal” in that instance is unsustainable ratfuckery to the detriment of everything else
He’s caused generational trauma to the entire political system. To the entire culture, really. Don’t think an instant return to normal is what most serious minded people think…but…Looking forward to literally whatever follows. It’s going to take time, but it’s hard to picture anyone stupider, more capricious or less qualified to lead a dignified office.
They say that you shouldn’t celebrate anyone’s death…but there are a few obituaries I’m looking forward to reading.
Even though I’m not a fan of Putin, I have to concede to him that Trump was his greatest achievement ever. No one ever thought that an external force could completely destroy the US this far. No one could even think of the idea of the US President actively trying to kill the country. Not even nukes have this level of destruction.
what does he gain from that
Sowing even more distrust
The fact he is old is actually more dangerous to US democracy than if there was decades ahead of him.
When time passes, a dictator is caught up by politics, and his power decrease because other factions will have consolidated their power so an equilibrium that satisfies all factions is necessary, and is thus more complex than a dictatorship.
If it’s too soon after the start of the dictatorship, then the chaos still reign, and power still fall in the hand of the one who controls armed forces. Which is usually the last dictator alive after the succession war.
Everything goes down to what your army will be loyal to.
everything that followed them invading a much smaller country and getting their shit stomped all the way back to the border was an act of desperation. the cat is out of the bag, and everyone now knows that russia is weak and has no modern military.
they better hope that relations between the US and China don’t improve, because China has a few bones to pick with them and they also quite possibly have the most advanced military on the planet.
Yeah, I get it. They wouldn’t even be negotiating if they didn’t feel they absolutely had to. They wanted it all, and they’ve pissed away so much for the hubris of an overpromoted, black hearted ghoul’s delusions of imperial glory. They have to make peace on some kind of relatively favorable terms before Trump croaks, that fuels so much of their obvious desperation and sudden willingness to “negotiate”. If you can even call it that. Russia’s tradition of diplomacy is to ask for ludicrous, maximalist terms, and assume feckless pussies on the other side will eventually cave and give you something, because…blah blah blah something about the sanctity of human life.
It’s just so incredibly obvious how big a fuck up this has been, and now what does Ukraine do? What is the smart strategic deicsion. In a sense - you’ve already won by suriving with as little territory lost as could reasonably be expected based on the landscape at the start of the war. But - a temporary ceasefire isn’t a long term peace. You want Russia to fuck off, forever, and to not be able to menace you again. Hopefully, crumbling internally into a post-Putin ethno-corporate warlord era with petty fueds fighting each other instead of invading Ukraine for the bazillionth time in history.
I dunno. If I’m Ukraine, I ride this out, keep bleeding the Russians and wait for better terms. Let Trump rage. At this point, they can probably resist without U.S. aid. Both Europe and Ukraine deserve better terms than are on offer.
Wasn’t there a map, leaked from the CCP documents, that showed China owning a significant portion of eastern russia, recently?
I haven’t heard of this, I really wana see it now though lol
The only road to real peace is forcing the russia out completely.
The only road to real peace is forcing the russian government out of russia completely. They need to redo the whole thing from scratch at this point
Right. But - in real terms - that’s not happening. The West’s salami slice strategy of giving Ukraine increasing capabilities has tapered off. It would be great if we blinked our eyes and Russia went away. But - given REAL options, from Ukraine’s perspective, you want to degrade their war capabilities as much as you can for as long as you can, at a reasonable cost to your own. Given the options of a bad peace that will inevitably ensure another invasion in 3-5 years, or just keep fighting and keep the russian war machine bleeding until Russia experiences a major economic collapse, or Putin dies and the country descends into a power struggle… where do you go? Hard to say. But it it’s the latter, then Ukraine’s seemingly impossible goals of regaining lost territory suddenly become less impossible-looking.
